Driver's Education, Cullen Style
by Uherenye
Summary: What happens when the Cullens move to a new town and are pretending to be so young that they have to take driver's ed? PreTwilight, oneshot.


**Author's Note**: Ok, here's the deal: I just finished a three week long driver's ed course. Every class I had a minute or two of free time after I finished the vocabulary work we had to do for the first fifteen minutes of the class, and I needed something to do, so I started writing this story in the back of my notebook. I fully acknowledge that this is nowhere near my best writing and beg my readers to understand that, as I was sometimes writing as little as a sentence at a time, it was very hard to remember my train of thought from night to night, and any plans I thought of for the plot one night were usually forgotten by the next. With that in mind I hope you enjoy this little bit of fun I had.

As far as the setting goes, this story takes place at an unspecified time before Twilight. I picked Wisconsin as the place only because that's where I live and therefore I know what is required for new drivers.

**Disclaimer**: I'm not Stephenie Meyer, because if I was this would be about a billion times better and I wouldn't be putting it on because it wouldn't be fanfiction. Therefore the characters, except the teacher, are not mine.

**Driver's Education, Cullen Style**

This was ridiculous. Utterly absurd.

It had been Carlisle's idea for us to play the youngest end of our age range in our new hometown, an often cloudy but still all too often sunny town in Wisconsin. In our previous home we had been at the uppermost end of our ranges, and we were definitely in need of a change. One of several disadvantages of the arrangement? Driver's education.

I could drive better than the best human on his best day and my worst, but the fact was that I was supposed to be fifteen. Here, fifteen was the age at which every child diligently studied the rules of the road just so that they could break them once they obtained their highly anticipated driver's licenses. Of course, fifteen held that same promise everywhere in the nation, but here in the beautiful state of Wisconsin there was a required thirty hours of classroom instruction on the topic. No pretending to have Carlisle or Esme teach me - I would have to endure every single long, torturous, mind-numbing hour.

It was worse than my normal high school classes.

So, there I was in a small, cramped room full of adolescents on a Wednesday evening. My only consolation was that Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie were all being forced to undergo this torture with me. Some consolation. The sheer number of warm bodies combined with the insignificant size of the room was making the scent of human blood nearly irresistible to Jasper, and the tenor of his thoughts did nothing to lift my spirits. As per usual, every human female in the room was disturbingly aware of my brothers and me; shutting out their disgusting and completely impossible fantasies was easier said than done.

The teacher, a bland man whose name most of my fellow students couldn't be bothered to remember, droned on endlessly about right of way this, signs that. I didn't bother to pay attention. Neither, I could hear, did a good number of the humans. I reflected briefly on the fact that, did I not have the kind of reflexes that I have, the probable incompetence of these children would be rather frightening. I could only thank G-d that no one I cared about - no one I cared about who hadn't been dead for a few decades, anyway - was fragile enough to be in any danger. Though there were many things that I abhorred about this life, even this life as Carlisle had brought us to live it, I supposed there were a few advantages when one stopped to consider.

My reverie was interrupted by Emmett thinking my name. Actually, it was much closer to shouting it than anything. I probably would have heard and paid attention even without such theatrics, but Emmett was the kind of person who often shouted his thoughts. He often shouted out loud as well. Actually, nearly everything Emmett did in his head he did out loud, and vice versa. He was possibly the only member of my family whose thoughts I didn't feel intrusive hearing.

Still putting on the charade of paying attention to the miserable instructor, I nodded slightly in acknowledgement of Emmett's call. Thought I was eternally grateful that no one around here shared my talent, I had to admit that it was a hassle to have to express my own ideas through nonverbal signals or whispers in a situation such as this, when others could communicate their thoughts to me in just exactly that form.

_I'm so bored!_

That was the immediate thought directed at me, but I could hear other thoughts floating in the background: half-formed plans to create a distraction, ideas for silly comments to make that would, at the very least, elicit an appreciative snicker from the half-sleeping teenagers.

I shrugged slightly, not enough to attract attention, but enough that Emmett would see. He knew me well enough to realize that my verbal response, had I been able to give it, would have been something along the lines of, "Well, what would you like me to do about it?"

I heard the thought a split second before his hand shot up in the air. The teacher, looking surprised that anyone would venture to ask a question, paused in midsentence and called on him.

"Mr. Teacher Dude, I don't get this right of way thing," Emmett said, purposely making his voice sound idiotic. I suppressed a grin. "Where's this Way place? And why should we write about it?"

The teacher looked incredulous. "Way isn't a place, Mr.…er…" _What's his name? Come on, you know this…big, brawny, scary kid…Crandon…Cricket…Crockett…Culliver…Cullen! _"Um, ahem, Cullen, yes, Mr. Cullen, it's not a place." I stifled a chuckle at his absurd train of thought.

A look of pure understanding crossed Emmett's face, but I knew from his thoughts that he wasn't done messing with the man yet. "Oh…_whey._ Write of _whey._ That makes sense. You want us to write about that stuff from milk."

"No, Mr. Cullen, I don't," said the teacher slowly. _How thick _is_ this kid?_ "I'm talking about the R-I-G-H-T of way, and milk has nothing to do with it."

Comprehension dawned again. I turned my head away to smirk. The rest of the class was tittering now, finally awake for once. "I get it! It's right to weigh yourself so you know if you're fat! But why do they call it right _of_ weigh? I think it should be right _to_ weigh."

By this time half of the class was unabashedly laughing, and the unfortunate teacher's thoughts were so confused that I almost felt bad for him. Almost. Except that his class was so unbearably boring and, though through no fault of his own, I was being compelled to attend it.

"N-no," stuttered the flabbergasted man," it's not right as in correct, it's right as in…erm….'you have the right to remain silent.' And -"

"Oh, oh!" Emmett shouted, bouncing up and down in his chair. I was surprised it didn't break. "I love police shows! They're so awesome! But kind of predictable 'cause the bad guy always gets caught. But awesome!"

The teacher's face was frozen in a look of utter surprise - eyes wide, mouth hanging open. After a few moments his jaw flexed open and closed a few times, giving him the appearance of a fish out of water. I chuckled at the state of his thoughts and silently noted to myself that a high five was in due order for Emmett after class. Even Rosalie was smiling now, amused at her sometimes-husband's childish hilarity. Jasper had been completely distracted from his blood drinking fantasies, which had in turn alleviated Alice's stress over his half-formed plans.

Suddenly the teacher composed his expression. Continuing as if he'd never been interrupted, he said, "And it's way, W-A-Y, not W-E-I-G-H. Right of way. The right to go through an intersection."

A look of confusion and annoyance flitted across Emmett's face. "Well that's stupid," he muttered. "I like my ideas better."

The teacher ignored him and decided to take advantage of the abnormal alertness of his students. "So, class, who can tell me who has the right of way when two cars reach a four-way stop intersection at the same time?"

A few hands rose hesitantly, but most of the students were too apathetic to bother. The only hand to shoot assuredly and eagerly in the air was Emmett's. Several girls giggled, and the hands that had previously been raised were quickly put down. Some of the kids thought he was just stupid, but others were sharp enough to see past his bluff. Either way, they all wanted to see what would come out of Emmett's mouth next.

"No one has the right of way," he said solemnly when the teacher, who had no other choice, called on him. "But the person on the left should yield it to the person on the right."

As cliché as this sounds, the sound of a pin dropping at that moment would have been easily audible even to the humans. The correct answer was the last thing that anyone, except my family, had been expecting.

The silence dragged on. I began to count the tickings of the second hand on the clock hanging behind me. Twenty…thirty…forty…a minute. Silence except for breath whooshing in and out of lungs, blood being pumped through veins. Or, in the case of the humans, except nothing.

"HIGGLDY-PIGGLDY!" Emmett suddenly yelled. His booming laugh filled the small room. The humans still looked shell-shocked. Jasper chuckled. Naturally, it was catching. In only a few moments, the entire class - teacher included - was convulsing in fits of laughter. Some of them even had tears streaming down their cheeks. It was silly, really, that any of them found this so funny, which was the main reason it was amusing to me.

Well, at least we weren't bored anymore.


End file.
